Free Republic

One of the key sticking points during negotiations to avoid a government shutdown on Friday was funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall — funding the Democrats refused even to consider. Trump had requested $1.4 billion to begin construction of the wall this year, but Democrats refused to let those funds be included in the budget request, even though it was a minuscule fraction of the federal budget, CNS reported. On the other hand, The Daily Caller reported that the Energy Transitions Commission, a group that includes former Vice President Al Gore, insisted that the world needed to invest $15...

WASHINGTON — Republicans drew battle lines Wednesday over the spending bill that would keep the government running by refusing to fund ObamaCare subsidies. “We’re not doing that,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday after a closed-door meeting with his GOP caucus. Declining to include payments to insurers in the April must-pass spending bill increases the drama for a possible government shutdown at midnight Friday. Pulling the money that helps low-income Americans afford insurance would create “monumental” instability in the individual marketplace, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) warned Wednesday. Democrats warned of dire consequences if Trump carries out his threat to sabotage...

Drug smugglers are being helped by the Democratic leaders in Congress who are trying to block funding for a border wall, says President Donald Trump. He is using Twitter to hit the Democrats as enablers for the criminal gangs that are smuggling deadly drugs into American cities and towns around the nation, and which are sending murderous MS-13 gang members into Americans’ neighborhoods. Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)! If Donald J. Trump ✔ ‎@realDonaldTrump ....the wall is not...

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney appears on Bloomberg News to discuss the seismic, epic, thundershock confrontational clash that is about to take place between the Trump administration and the DC UniParty. There are no adjectives capable of describing the scope and immeasurable scale of the battle that is about to transpire between the White House and the Democrat/Republican UniParty. MONEY is where every entity within the full-swamp goes nuclear against President Trump and the administration. Despite all prior discussions toward this end, it is doubtful that more than one-in-a-million people can fully grasp the dynamic at play....

The Mayor of Bekeley, Jesse Arreguin supports the far-left terrorist organization, BAMN according to his Facebook page. Perhaps this is why the police were told to stand down while ANTIFA threw glass bottles, M-80’s and bricks at Trump supporters in his city. Mayor Jesse Arreguin is a member of ‘BAMN’ AKA ‘By Any Means Necessary’, a violent organization affiliated with ANTIFA. Is this something that should be acceptable for a sitting Mayor? Below is a screenshot of Jesse Arreguin’s Facebook page. Click here for archive link.

President Trump predicted Friday that pressure on Democrats will compel them to work with Republicans to pass a healthcare reform package after Obamacare collapses. "When it explodes, they come to us and we make one beautiful deal," Trump told the Washington Post's Robert Costa in a phone interview shortly after House leadership pulled the American Health Care Act in the face of conservative opposition. Trump said he believed Republicans came within "five to 12 votes" of passing the AHCA. They needed 216 votes to send the legislation to the Senate.

In this age of waxing laws and waning freedoms, a notable exception to the pattern of ever-tightening restrictions is gun prohibitions. New Hampshire no longer requires a license for the carrying of a concealed, loaded firearm; Florida is considering eliminating all “gun-free zones” (e.g., at schools); and Iowa may institute a “Stand your ground” provision and lower the age at which children could use handguns, to cite a few examples. [...]All this stokes another fear: that the U.S. will become a gun free-for-all zone of murder and mayhem. But does data justify this concern?

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday questioned Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch about what it would take to impeach President Trump. The Republican senator used a portion of his time for questions at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing to probe Gorsuch about the impeachment process.

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated] Yes, he's historic, alright (new items denoted by ••• prefix).

Barack Obama did more damage to his party than any other political leader since World War II. And Obama did this despite enjoying eight years of nonstop accolades from a fawning press.

So far, the Senate has confirmed 14 of the 549 senior federal positions that President Trump needs to run the government and who need Senate confirmation—Cabinet secretaries and people who run the departments, bureaus, agencies and the rest of the government. The rest of the government is being run by career bureaucrats and a few Obama holdovers.

Oh man, the winning is getting almost too exponential today. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Videgaray states his government will not allow President Trump to deport illegal Mexican aliens back into Mexico. He’s setting himself up for a big problem, here’s why. What no one noticed yet was Trump administration immediately postponed the release of the new immigration policy executive order (until next week). Remember, part of President Trump’s expressed policy outline was an immigration rule that explicitly invalidates any reciprocity Visa process from any nation that does not accept repatriation of it’s own citizens.

President Donald Trump is junking former President Barack Obama’s unpopular federal pro-transgender policies, according to the White House spokesman. The policy reversal will likely protect single-sex civic groups and institutions — including single-sex bathrooms — across the nation from lawsuits and will put new pressure on federal judges to preserve the central role of biology in defining whether a person is male or female.

President Nicolás Maduro has expelled CNN after accusing the international news outlet of “manipulating” information about Venezuela. Maduro said Sunday he wants CNN “outside” Venezuela after he claimed the news channel manipulated information about a student’s complaint regarding the lack of food at school. “Some media like CNN tried to manipulate information,” he said. “They can not manipulate information like that, it’s our affair, of Venezuelans. CNN does not need to put its nose in Venezuela … I want CNN well away from here.”

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” reacted to the 9th Circuit Court ruling upholding the blocking of President Trump‘s executive order halting immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States senior advisor to President Donald Trump Stephen Miller said, there was no such thing as “judicial supremacy.” Partial transcript as follows: TODD: Let me start with the decision by the 9th circuit and the president himself saying to reporters that a new order may be drafted. Is that what you and others are doing right now? Drafting a new order since essentially the 9th circuit seemed to give...

State AG Schneiderman Has Trump in His Legal Crosshairs By Courtney Gross Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 07:38 PM EST With the new president in his legal crosshairs, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is also busy raising his national profile. NY1's Courtney Gross looks at how Schneiderman is rapidly becoming Donald Trump's biggest New York nemesis. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has added a new responsibility to his job description: taking on the president. "It is up to us at the state level to show leadership," Schneiderman said. Since Donald Trump took the oath of office, the state attorney general...

Opening Statement On Friday, a Boston federal judge issued a 21 page decision debunking the arguments against Trump’s Executive Order suspending migration from certain countries pending further review. Later that same day, a Seattle federal judge who has been making the news lately (and not usually for the most flattering of reasons), declared his oral intention to sign an order limiting some aspects of the executive order. In the courtroom, whose position is likely to ultimately win? Just a quick review of the two written orders can tell you which one is likely to win. The Boston judge cited a...

“We are going to have to do something about Chicago. Because what is happening in Chicago should not be happening in this country.” Last month also saw 234 shooting incidents and 299 shooting victims – compared to 242 shooting incidents and 291 victims during the same time period last year. Despite the grim numbers in January, police have said a new plan is helping get guns off the streets. Police recovered more than 600 guns last month, an increase of more than 60 percent over January 2016. Police said gun arrests also were more than double the total from January...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, aka CAIR, has helped launch a series of protests across the country and plans lawsuits related to President Trump’s recent executive orders on immigration.

A New York county has announced that it is reversing its sanctuary policy only weeks before President-Elect Trump is set to be inaugurated. Sheriff Vincent DeMarco announced that his county will no longer demand a judge’s order before detaining an illegal immigrant wanted by federal agents for deportation, a major move to distance the county from its ranks of being a sanctuary city, according to Newsday. The reversal is happening in short order before Trump is expected to take office and dismantle sanctuary city policies. DeMarco states that this policy reversal came after careful “legal analysis” and had nothing to...